ISSUE DATE: SEPTEMBER 2003  OPTIONS
Military Electronics


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September 2003 - In This Issue

[Cover Story]
Ceramic Resonator Oscillators Challenge SAW Performance
Higher-frequency tunable oscillators are vital for wireless systems. As the frequencies of these systems increase, tunable oscillator designers are challenged to meet increasingly demanding requirements for phase-noise performance at lower costs....  — Ulrich L. Rohde

[News]
Show Tracks Changing Military Requirements
Military electronics markets have remained strong during the last few years, even at a time when business in commercial optical and wireless communications has slowed to a crawl. To provide designers of military electronics systems an opportunity to...  — Jack Browne

[News]
Sizing Up The Smiths Interconnect Group
Interconnects and power harnesses are often considered as "secondary" technologies to military systems integrators. But designers of mission-critical avionics systems, for example, will be quick to point out that anything less than a military-grade...  — Jack Browne

[Design Features]
Evaluating RF Relays For Military Systems
Coaxial RF relays are used throughout military systems. Systems developers and integrators such as Raytheon Systems Company (St. Petersburg, FL) must rigorously screen defective components from their suppliers in order to avoid system-level failures....  — Robert W. Dobson

[Design Features]
Gaining LDMOS Device Linearity And Stability
Power lateral diffused metal-oxide-semiconductor (LDMOS) transistors, popularly used in linear high-power amplifiers (HPAs) for cellular base stations, are not without their linearity and stability problems. In addition to long-term threshold drift,...  — Jed Rice

[Design Features]
Reviewing SDARS Antenna Requirements
Automotive satellite radios, specifically the Satellite Digital Audio Radio System (SDARS), place stringent requirements on the receiving antenna. SDARS employs a dual-transmitter broadcast format in which signals are sent from both satellite-based...  — Stanislav Licul , et al.

[Design Features]
Assemble A Tunable L-Band Preselector
Electrically tunable preselectors are key elements in communications, avionics, and radar receivers. Narrowband RF and microwave preselectors prevent large off-channel signals from overdriving a receiver front end. Microstrip combline and...  — Leo G. Maloratsky

[Design Features]
Enhance The Design Of LTCC RF Modules
Low-temperature-cofired-ceramic (LTCC) technology offers the means to integrate active and passive components on compact modules for both commercial and military applications. This elegant technology can provide tremendous benefits in terms of high...  — Sean Kim , et al.

[Product Technology]
Low-Noise Synthesizers Switch In Microseconds
High-throughput measurements, such as antenna testing and RF integrated-circuit (RF IC) characterization, call for a fast-switching frequency synthesizer. Until recently, instrument synthesizers with microsecond switching speed came with hefty price...  — Jack Browne

[Product Technology]
Software Sculpts Complex Waveforms
Waveform generation can be complex and time-consuming. Most engineers resort to a mathematical software program to generate a complex waveform. They must then port the math files to a signal generator capable of accurately responding to the...  — Jack Browne

[Product Technology]
Low-Cost Transceiver Drives Wireless USB
Wireless solutions must provide functionality at minimal cost. Sometimes, standards-based solutions, such as Bluetooth and Zigbee chip sets, offer excessive data-handling capability for certain applications, such as in remote-control devices. But...  — Jack Browne

[Product Technology]
Software Adds Dynamic Requirements Management
Development programs for military systems can be massive projects involving numerous engineering teams, procurement professionals, subcontractors, and even consultants. Managing such efforts is by no means trivial but, thankfully, now somewhat easier...  — Jack Browne

[Product Technology]
Analyzer Captures Broadband Signals
Wideband signals common to modern communications systems, such as wideband code-division-multiple-access (WCDMA) signals, tax the limits of even the best spectrum analyzers. For that reason, the engineers at Advantest America Measuring Solutions...  — Jack Browne

[Editorial]
Learning More About Military Electronics
Military electronics now triggers the automatic interest among high-frequency design engineers that the term "wireless communications" generated a decade earlier. During that time, many companies abandoned their military business efforts for...  — Jack Browne